Posted by Sanford Forte
a resident of Evergreen Park
on Nov 1, 2007 at 9:32 am

I was there last evening; I hope the Weekly's photographer had a chance to see the work. It was an astounding collection of Halloween pumpkin art.

One thing that I found interesting was the constant side-chatter from various artists and art students, commenting on the various designs from a technical point of view - including pretty sophisticated renderings about the aesthetics of pumpkin carving. I overheard comments about how deep one should carve the interior pith to garner certain effects, to how certain angles on the various geometric designs were optimal in rendering shadowy effects.

My favorite was a pumpkin that had most of the interior pith removed, except in places where the untouched thickness of the pith rendered an image of a face when lit up by the pumpkin's interior candle. What captivated me (and others, it was a big favorite) about that pumpkin was that one could not see the face in daylight, as the image it projected could only be seen in the evening, lit by an interior candle, because the "face image" was entirely dependent on the depth of the interior pith - there was no carving on this pumpkin. I tried to take a picture, but my flash neutralized the interior light from the candle, and the face disappeared!